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In the face of ‘eradication’, one trans activist is preparing to fight – and she’s sick of silence and neglect from her supposed allies. Raquel Willis tells Io Dodds why Republican bathroom bans are everybody’s problem

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[–] [email protected] 86 points 1 week ago

Democrats have forgotten their history. They like to say that trans rights are a "distraction." They forget that not only were trans people some of the first victims of the Holocaust, but that liberal papers like the NYTimes similarly dismissed Nazi antisemitism as a "distraction" as well. They predicted that, just like Trump and trans people, Hitler was just using Jews as a scapegoat to get elected. They thought that despite widespread antisemitism in Germany, it was just a campaign distraction. They thought there simply weren't enough Jews in Germany to make real oppression something worthwhile for the Nazis to pursue.

In pre-Nazi Germany, Jews represented about 1% of the population. That is the same portion of the population that trans people represent in the US today.

[–] [email protected] 42 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Itt: liberals still fever-dreaming that Democrats (as a corporate party, not the voters) are on the side of marginalized communities.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

More than Republicans, I guess. But Jesus what a low bar that is.

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[–] [email protected] 32 points 1 week ago (1 children)

We largely couldn't in the first place, but thanks for the heads up. There was a hope, sure. But little trust due to little action.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 week ago (2 children)

It's a matter of degree. I felt a heck of a lot more protected than I had previously. Action? Not as much as there should have been but hardly zero.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (3 children)

You only get action when you're living in a blue city, under a blue state, with a blue President.

If anyone on the stack is Republican, your civil rights dissolve in the face of bureaucracy and legalese.

Republican courts, Republican governors, Republican sheriff's department, Republican school board... anything is enough for Dems to defer and compromise on your liberty.

They won't even stand up for their own elected Congressional coworkers to use the fucking restroom.

With Trump in office, you're going to see Dems retreat from any kind of LGBTQ rights on a sweeping scale. Just wholesale capitulation, as they blame their electoral defeat on being insufficiently servile to bigots.

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 week ago (5 children)

hardly zero.

Yeah, like I said: little. It felt like they were content to do enough to get credit and then kick the can down the road until they were forced to do more. Now we enter an era that will likely strip back what progress has been made. In four years we'll be pushed back forty.

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[–] [email protected] 22 points 1 week ago (8 children)

Democrats were pretty cool about protecting trans people. But thanks to non-voters and $hill Stein voters (along with tens of millions of “low information” Trumpledorks), Trump has all three branches of government at his disposal.

[–] [email protected] 62 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Considering Democrats are now complaining that their protection of trans people cost them the election, I wouldn't say they were all that cool to begin with. They use trans people as a political tool and then toss them aside the second it becomes inconvenient for them to support trans rights. Just look at how the Democrats have "defended" their newest trans colleague.

[–] [email protected] 21 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Specific people in the Democratic Party have made those complaints. The party has not. Your comment is no different than stereotyping a group for the actions of individuals.

[–] [email protected] 21 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Has the party as a whole done anything to say otherwise? Silence is a different kind of choice.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (3 children)

You’re claiming the Democratic Party hasn’t supported the trans community?

[–] [email protected] 23 points 1 week ago (17 children)

When the leading candidate avoids the issue, gives less representation to trans people than the preceding candidates, and says "states rights" in response to growing repression of trans people when pushed to say something in an interview, I think its fair to say the Dem leadership has abandoned us. Individual dems are better, but the leadership clearly doesn't care.

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[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 week ago (41 children)

I'm saying they're willing to throw them under the bus as soon as it gets difficult. Being silent while a few members do so explicitly isn't being an ally.

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[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 week ago (7 children)

They really haven't. They tend to take a neutral stance at best, rather than positively affirming trans rights. This was one of the things that killed them in the election. Despite being a decade in to the recent Republican war on trans people, Democrats have never bothered to develop a set of coherent talking points that they can defend trans rights around. When was the last time you heard a centrist Democrat say, "trans women are women, trans men are men. Their healthcare is medically necessary and life-saving. Trans women belong in women's restrooms and trans men in men's. Republicans are currently guilty of attempting a genocide."

That's the kind of talking points they should be using, a full-throated defense of trans rights that can directly stand up against Republican hate mongering. Instead, if they respond at all, they respond in a pathetic mincing way that tries to "both sides" the issue. Instead of vocally coming down firmly on the side of trans rights, they'll say things like, "these are complex issues...." or "these issues are a distraction..." You would never see a Democrat say that antisemitism is "a distraction" or that defending abortion rights "are a complex issue."

With some notable exceptions, Democrats have completely failed to actually have strong support for trans rights. Republicans are anti-trans and pro-trans genocide. Democrats are neutral. And this really hurt them in the election. Republicans supported full trans elimination. And Democrats could only respond with non-committal mealy-mouthed mumbling about the complexity of the issue. Voters saw that they really didn't stand for anything. Kamala didn't really believe in anything when it comes to trans rights, and the voters punished her for it. Voters want people who actually believe in something, not an empty suit that is just following polls and focus groups.

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[–] [email protected] 30 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Just hours after Willis’s interview with The Independent, House and Senate negotiators revealed a bipartisan compromise spending bill that would ban military health insurance from covering transition care for children. On Wednesday, 50 House Democrats who previously denounced that provision voted in favor, and key Senate Democrats said they would reluctantly back it too.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 week ago (1 children)

What did they get in return?

It's politics, they got something, what was it?

It doesn't say? Huh. I wonder why.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 week ago (1 children)

They got to fund the military.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 week ago

then double fuck them, how about the military passes an audit before they get more tax money to hand over to billionaires.

[–] [email protected] 29 points 1 week ago

The problem with democrats is that they always hold progressive action overhead like a carrot. "Vote for us, we'll establish trans rights/universal healthcare/codify roe v wade!".

Then they don't do it because they want to use it as a fundraising and election platform next go around. If they just did things when they had power people would be more willing to vote for them.

And yes, I know that there are Republicans and independents blocking progressive action. But that doesn't excuse the DNC from doing what I described above as well as constantly shitting on popular progressive candidates.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 week ago (5 children)

Not really, like their supposed protection of black people their protection of trans people is contingent on how the minority behaves.

That's not support, that's blackmail.

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

It's crazy to see a party with a 3:1 fundraising advantage lose in a landslide and then blame the distant fourth place vote getter for the defeat.

Nobody seems to want to talk about how Democrats endorsed a genocide and how that may have shifted their popularity.

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[–] [email protected] 22 points 1 week ago

Nobody can trust the Democrats to protect anyone but the investors

[–] [email protected] 21 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Voters: Not enough votes for Democrats, letting the people who want to convert trans people and make hormone therapy illegal and God knows what else come to power

Republicans: Hey now that we're in power, we're going to convert trans people and make hormone therapy illegal and God knows what else

Voters: You guys really fucked this one up, I can't trust you

[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 week ago (1 children)

How could Democrats do this??

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[–] [email protected] 17 points 1 week ago (7 children)

When Kamala Harris was the AG for California she was forced to defend a lawsuit where a trans woman in prison for murder wanted the state to pay for reassignment surgery. I was told that by supporting Harris I was transphobic and I should just admit it.

Here's what I'll admit: trans people who didn't support the Harris ticket as if their life depended on it fucked up.

Seriously, "fuck Democrats"? Okay Dude, I can see you don't want to be cheered up - c'mon Donny let's go get us a lane.

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[–] [email protected] 17 points 1 week ago

just because they abandoned you and blamed you for losing the election? naaah they're fine. too bad they're gonna have zero power now.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (3 children)

They never really could. The Democratic party likes to claim issues like same sex marriage and trans rights as if they had anything to do with it. Same sex marriage had to be fought for in the courts during a democrat reign. They used trans rights as a big talking point for 2024 yet made little attempt to safeguard them during the previous 4 years. They ignore their base then take credit for all their accomplishments. They now use lgbt issues as an anchor to avoid promising any meaningful changes. It's the same thing the Republicans have been doing with abortion. All I'm saying is, Bernie2028.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 week ago

Bernie is finally too old. Nobody is coming to save you.

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[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (3 children)

The Theatre Of Identity on both sides of the aisle in the US was always bullshit to try and get more votes, if done differently:

  • Most of the Democracts don't really care about Equality (especially not in the Wealth domain, though they pay lip service to the fight against a few non-Wealth inequalities), they care about themselves and the ultra-rich.
  • The Republicans don't care about America or The American People, they care about themselves and the ultra-rich.

Mind you, this is a pretty common pattern in other countries with electoral systems that boost a pair of "center" parties - there will be a "Right" one preaching some kind of nationalist pro-nation message and a "Left" one preaching anti-discrimination along racial/gender/sexual-orientation (but never wealth) lines, but they both serve the interest of the same people and will even get together to pass legislation that increases their own salaries, reduces the effectiveness of the fight against corruption or benefit some large well entrenched "regime" corporations who (by an amazing coincidence) employ in highly paid positions lots of politicians when they retire.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 week ago

Yeah, I think dems don't take equality seriously at all. The cultural equality stuff they parrot is to distract from the fact that they'll never do anything to change the biggest inequality in the US, wealth and class. Even if it'd Freudian, in that they can point and say "see there? I want an equitable society" while ignoring the wealth inequality that is, statistically speaking, doing well for the college educated base they now encompass.

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 week ago (2 children)

right so where do they turn?

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 week ago (3 children)

Left. More left. All the way left. Become a leftist.

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 week ago (1 children)

idk, DDD ? We’re fuckin queers, dude. NO ONE has our backs but each other, no one ever has, no teacher no parent no church

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